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Enlightenment - both the phenomenon specific to the eighteenth century and the continuing trend in Western thought - is an attempt to dispel ignorance, achieve mastery of a potentially hostile environment, and contain fear of the unknown by promoting science and rationality. Enlightenment is often accompanied and challenged by countercultures such as German Romanticism, which explored the nature of fear and deployed it as a corrective to the excesses of rationalism.
The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism uncovers the formative role this movement played in the development of dark or negative aesthetics. Recovering a missing chapter in the history of the aesthetics of fear, Paola Mayer illustrates that Romanticism was a crucial transitional phase between the eighteenth-century sublime and the early twentieth-century uncanny. Mayer puts literature and philosophy in dialogue, examining how German Romantic literature employed narratives of fear to radicalize and then subvert the status quo in society, culture, and science. She traces the development of this aesthetic from its inception with pre-Romantics such as Jean Paul Richter to its end in Joseph von Eichendorff's critical retrospective, and juxtaposes canonical authors such as E.T.A. Hoffmann - the father of the modern fantastic - with writers who have previously been ignored.
Today, when the dark side of science looms in the foreground, The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism points to the power of a literary movement to construct competing currents of thought.
"What is interesting about Mayer's approach is that, rather than applying twentieth or twenty-first-century concepts to early nineteenth-century works, she looks at how terms related to fear, such as "Schauer," were used in the Romantic era, in prose fiction, philosophy, and literary and music criticism. This careful examination of Romantic philosophical language and concepts, prose fiction, and critical writings allows her to argue convincingly for the centrality of the concept of fear to Romantic aesthetics and creative expression. Aficionados of German literature, of philosophy, and of Romanticism, will find erudition and enjoyment in Paola Mayer's The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism." European Romantic Review
"An overview here of Mayer's conclusions cannot do justice to her rigorous analyses and attention to nuance and contradiction. She does not shy away from complicating aesthetic history at the same time that she manages to resolve its paradoxes. Given such intricacy she takes pains at every juncture to label and number her insights, making The Aesthetics of Fear orderly and unfussy despite its length and intricacy." The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory
"Mayer carefully situates the Romantic aesthetics of fear between the notion of the sublime that developed in the 18th century and the notion of the uncanny that developed in the 20th century. This volume illustrates just how relevant Romanticism remains: danger and disorder cannot always be contained, so one must learn to handle fear. Highly recommended." Choice
"Mayer's attention to music and its treatment in theoretical texts frame discussions of tales, and the inclusion of stories such as Tieck's Der getreue Eckart oder der Tannenhäuser and Hoffmann's Der Kampf der Sänger is a particularly strong feature of her study. The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism is a pleasure to read." Dennis F. Mahoney, University of Vermont